ABSTRACT
I might gain possession of your wallet by knocking you unconscious and taking it. I might, instead, persuade you that I have an innocent interest in wallets, get you to give it to me to examine, and then run off. These are very different strategies, and while animals of many kinds engage in behaviour like that in my first example, the evidence for behaviour of the second kind in non-human animals is controversial. Many hold, and I am one, that this competence requires an understanding of mental states, the capacity to reason about them, to manipulate them in others, and to take them into account in decision making. In stealing your wallet by strategy rather than by force, I seek to get you to believe something false about my intentions, predicting that this will have certain effects on your behaviour, and consequent effects on my ability to get your money.
